Can a ‘Promise’ end domestic violence?

Domestic violence often pounds through multiple generations. Moms watched their moms who witnessed their mothers being pummeled by raging family members. Can it–will it–ever stop?

L.Y. Marlow saw the bruises on her daughter’s face and neck. She learned her 6-month-old granddaughter had lain on the bed while her father strangled her mother. Marlow looked at her tiny granddaughter, named Promise, and said, “Enough.” She might not be able to save her daughter, a fourth-generation domestic violence victim, but she would save her granddaughter.

Saving Promise, Marlow’s nonprofit organization, brings together executives from major companies, Harvard academics, and others with one goal: to prevent abuse from occurring in the first place.

“I feel Promise was born for a purpose,” Marlow said. “I want her to know what it means and feels like to not have to endure what four generations of mothers endured before her. She could really be the first in our family not to be abused.”

Read the complete Washington Post article to learn how a grandmother works to keep domestic violence from devouring a fifth generation.